by Jane Blythe
Penny left her with the food and the girl immediately started eating, her hand was shaking so much he saw soup slosh over the side of her spoon, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d had a meal.
He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her eat, glad that he’d been able to do something to help someone in need.
A good deed a day kept the anger away.
And he really did have a lot of anger inside, more than he could ever erase no matter how many good deeds he committed.
* * * * *
9:57 P.M.
Her time was up.
It was nearly ten, which meant that it was time to leave the diner’s warmth and security and head out into the cold night. She still had no idea where she was going to go or how she was going to survive a night out on the street. She’d never done that before, she’d spent her first night in the bus station, then the last few nights she’d had the safety of the bus to protect her from the elements, but tonight she had no place to go.
Which meant she would be sleeping on the streets.
Meadow was terrified by the prospect.
First off there was the obvious problem of the cold, it was winter, and all she had to keep herself and her unborn baby warm was a coat that wasn’t designed to take the place of a house and a bed. And second, she would have no protection from anyone who might be out wandering the streets at night.
What if there was a rapist out there?
She would be of no use to a thief, but maybe that would make the person angry, and they’d beat her up because she didn’t have any money to give them.
With a last longing look at the diner—which was mostly empty now—Meadow shrugged back into her coat and stepped outside. At least she had been able to eat a good meal, and she wasn’t hungry any longer. She wasn’t really sure that she believed the whole whatever food that wasn’t sold by the end of the day was thrown away story that Penny the waitress had told her, but in the end she had been too hungry to put up much resistance. Now she had a tummy full of soup and delicious homemade bread, and a muffin for dessert, plus she still had two sandwiches and two muffins left over which were packed in a paper bag that she was clutching tightly in her hand. When you had basically nothing what little you did have suddenly became very precious, and right now those couple of sandwiches and muffins were all she had to eat for the foreseeable future.
As well as getting something to eat, she’d also been able to use the bathroom at the diner, and it was so nice to use a clean restroom after the ones from the gas stations these last few days. This one had been painted a warm, cheery yellow, the floor was the same hardwood as the rest of the diner, the toilet had been clean, and there was a vase of flowers sitting on the vanity, and a soft white towel to dry her hands with. It was heaven.
But that was over now.
She could hardly sit in the diner all day every day, and she couldn’t expect that they would give her free food every day, so she was going to have to make her sandwiches and muffins last as long as she could. She didn’t even have enough left for another cup of tea, so there wasn’t even that to look forward to.
Maybe in the morning she would walk up and down the street, see what stores River’s End had, and if any of them were in the market for a new employee. She had no experience, but she was hardworking and she paid great attention to detail, she was a quick learner, and she was willing to do anything she was asked to. If she could just earn enough to buy even one meal a day she’d be happy, and maybe she could save up a little, find a room to rent, or buy a bus ticket and move on. She didn’t really care which.
The street was quiet, but the occasional car drove past, and there was a couple walking hand in hand further down the street. She stared wistfully at them, all she had ever wanted, for as long as she could remember, was someone to love her. She just wanted a place in the world where she belonged, but no matter how hard she searched for it she could never find it.
Still, that was a worry for another day. Right now, keeping herself and her unborn baby alive was the most important thing, it hardly mattered about finding someone who would love her forever if she was dead.
Hunching over against the wind that had blown up while she was in the diner, Meadow started walking down the street. She had no idea what she was looking for, maybe a church with an open door, or an alley that would block some of the wind, or even a large bush or something that she could curl up underneath.
She was about halfway down the street when she saw an alley. This would be a nice quiet place to spend the night. It was narrow, barely wide enough for a car, and there was a dumpster down toward the end, it would be smelly, but she could move it forward a little and then get in between the dumpster and the wall, and that should provide shelter from the wind and enough warmth that she didn’t freeze to death out here.
That was a possibility.
Even if she could find a job tomorrow she wasn’t going to be paid right away. It could be days or most likely weeks before she had enough to be able to rent a room, and just because there hadn’t been any snow in a week didn’t mean it wasn’t coming. There was a good chance that someone would find her body one morning after she had succumbed to hypothermia overnight.
But not tonight.
She had no intention of dying tonight.
Or any night.
She had a little baby that was relying on her to keep it alive, at least until it was born, after that she didn’t know what she was going to do with it. Part of her wanted to keep it, but the sensible part of her brain knew that she couldn’t even take care of herself right now. How was she going to raise a baby? She couldn’t keep it out here on the streets, and what if she decided to move on again? She could hardly drag an infant from town to town while she tried to find a place where she felt safe enough to settle down.
Again she pushed that worry away. She was only five months pregnant so she had another four months to go before she had to worry about whether or not she was going to keep her baby or drop it off at a hospital, police station, or fire station. She knew about the safe haven laws that allowed a parent to drop off an unharmed infant without fear of being charged with a crime.
Today though, her biggest worry was making it till morning.
The further she walked down the alley the more the wind died down. That was definitely a good sign. Luck was on her side again when she reached the dumpster, it was large and she wasn’t sure she would be able to move it on her own, but it must have been emptied within the last twenty-four hours or so because it was mostly empty and rolled easily away from the wall.
Needing its protection, Meadow didn’t move it too far away from the wall, just enough for her to wriggle in between. The ground was cold and dirty, and she didn’t want to lie down, so instead she shuffled about so that she was resting against the wall. It wasn’t comfortable, but at least she thought she would be warm enough down here.
She yawned. A big one that stretched her mouth as far open as it would go, she was so tired, she hadn’t slept much on the bus, she kept expecting someone to come storming after her, having somehow managed to track her down. Just because he hadn’t so far didn’t mean that he wouldn’t. He was smart, much smarter than she had realized, and she wouldn’t put it past him to figure out a way to find her.
As soon as she closed her eyes her mind filled with fears.
All the things she had run away from, all the uncertainties that her future held, all the fears that something would go wrong with her pregnancy and her baby would die, all the things that could happen to her living out on the streets.
So many fears.
For about the tenth time today tears brimmed in her eyes. She couldn’t do this; she wasn’t strong enough to do this. How had she ever thought that this was going to work out?
It wasn’t.
It couldn’t.
She wasn’t strong enough to do this.
She wasn’t smart enough to do this.
This was a mistake.
<
br /> Only there was no way to take it back. She couldn’t go backward, and yet she didn’t know how to go forward.
Where did that leave her?
One hand lifted to touch the brick wall she was resting against, the other touched the back of the dumpster. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, that was where it left her.
* * * * *
10:38 P.M.
He loved small-town life.
Abe sat on his front porch, looking out at the quiet night. It was dark out, the sky was filled with thick clouds, obscuring any light the moon might have given, but he had the light on in the living room behind him, and he was enjoying just rocking slowly back and forth on the porch swing and watching as the wind rustled through the forest.
He couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
Small town life was quiet and simple. River’s End was busy in the winter as families flocked to come skiing, in the summer people came to go camping, hiking, and swimming and do water sports on the lake, but the rest of the year it was peaceful here.
Just the way he liked it.
His dad had been in the military, but after being discharged the family had moved here when he was eight, and this was where he had grown up. Running through the forest, climbing trees, snowball fights in the winter, long summer days playing in the river, bonfires in the fall, it had been perfect. His family had its issues like any other, but he’d had a happy childhood, and after he had done a tour in Afghanistan, he hadn’t been able to think of any place he’d rather start his own life than right back here. So he’d become a cop, bought this plot of land just a couple of miles north of town, and now he was the sheriff, and it was his job to make sure that this place remained a paradise for all the generations of kids to come.
Thinking of kids made him think of the girl from the diner, not that his thoughts had strayed far from her since he’d seen her come walking in. She was a beautiful young woman, and he hoped that whatever had led to her being pregnant and homeless would work itself out. Hopefully, friends or family would track her down and take her home, support her through whatever had led her to run away, and that everything would work out for her and her baby.
But lingering at the back of his mind was that there was a more sinister reason for her being homeless. There were so many people out there who would take advantage of a pretty girl, and he hoped that wasn’t what had happened to her.
Meadow.
Her name was Meadow.
Penny had managed to pry out of the girl her name when she’d given her the tray full of food. It was a beautiful name for a beautiful girl, and the image of the smile on her face when she had accepted the dinner and started eating it was wedged firmly into his mind, and he couldn’t seem to dislodge it no matter how hard he tried.
Abe might have sat on the porch, another cup of coffee in his hand, the wind whistling through the trees, for hours, but his phone buzzed, and as the sheriff he never ignored a call, so he pulled it out of his pocket.
“Sheriff Black,” he said into it.
“Hey, Abe, sorry to bother you so late, but we had a call from Mrs. DuVall. She said she was working late and she heard someone moving about in the alley behind her store,” his deputy sheriff, also his cousin, Julian, told him.
“Is she sure?” It wasn’t that he thought Mrs. DuVall was lying, but the woman did have a tendency to be a bit of a drama queen, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had blown the whole thing out of proportion.
“Sounded pretty certain. The Tyler kids have been running wild through the town late at night, and she thought it might have been them up to mischief.”
By running wild what Mrs. DuVall really meant was that the Tyler kids were going through a rough time, their mom was dying of cancer, and their dad was away a lot because he traveled for work, so they had been acting out and riding their snowmobiles up and down Main Street late at night. The way Mrs. DuVall said it you’d think they were breaking into stores and trashing them or beating people up. “You’d think she could be a little more understanding given their situation,” he said.
“You’d think,” Julian agreed. “You want me to go check it out?”
“No, I’ll go,” he replied, already standing and heading back inside to grab a coat and his keys.
“All right, call if it’s anything.”
“Sure,” he said, but he was positive it wasn’t going to turn out to be anything. “See you tomorrow.”
Besides his cousin, there were two other deputies in River’s End, Julian’s brother Will, and his youngest brother’s best friend, Fletcher Harris. There was also a pretty young woman, Poppy Deveraux, who answered the phones and managed the office. Although that was enough for the quieter months, in the busier months he sometimes wished they had another deputy or two, and he was hoping to hire someone else in the summer.
Inside, he put out the fire that was crackling away in his living room fireplace, then left a light on so it wouldn’t be pitch black by the time he returned. His cabin was about two and a half miles from the town, maybe a five-minute drive, so he didn’t bother grabbing gloves and a scarf, he should be fine with just his coat.
The cold usually didn’t bother him much, and since the drive was short, he didn’t bother turning on the heat. By the time his SUV warmed up enough for the heater to do any good he’d basically be there anyway.
By the time he reached Main Street and parked his car the wind had picked up some more, and it blew straight through him almost making him regret his decision not to put on a beanie or scarf or something. There were no kids riding snowmobiles up and down the street, in fact there was no one. Anywhere. The place was completely quiet. The diner was closed, and the other restaurant in town was over in the hotel a mile outside the town on the south end, so there were no people about, walking to their cars, or lingering in the street kissing or making out.
Abe nearly decided to just get back in his car and head home. He had a little work to attend to before he went to bed, and he usually liked to work late then go for a long run before he even attempted to try to sleep. He’d seen a lot in his tour of Afghanistan, and while it didn’t usually bother him during the day, those unresolved feelings sometimes came out at night in the form of nightmares. The nightmare was always the same, the bassinette with the baby in it, only it was his baby, and no matter how many times he tried to get it out before the bomb went off he always failed.
He’d do a quick check of the alley where Mrs. DuVall claimed she had heard someone and then he’d go home, text Julian that he could assure the older woman who ran the art gallery that there was no one out there. The alley was quiet, he didn’t see anyone, he didn’t hear anything, and he was convinced it was the wind that had created the noise Mrs. DuVall had heard, but then he saw something.
Someone had moved the dumpster.
He noticed this because they’d been working a case where someone had been mugging tourists and dumping the empty wallets and purses in the dumpsters around the town. As a result he had spent a lot of time around the dumpsters, and this one had definitely been moved, it was usually situated right up against the back wall.
Abe walked closer, wondering whether the noise Mrs. DuVall had heard was another mugging and one that had progressed to the point of violence. He was sure it was only a matter of time before their thief progressed to assault and he half expected to see someone lying back here, beaten and unconscious.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he saw the woman from the diner. She wasn’t beaten up, and she didn’t appear to be unconscious, but she did look like she was sleeping.
Guilt immediately began to poke at him.
He should have done more, he had suspected that the woman was homeless and had no place to go, but he hadn’t wanted to interfere because she was an adult and there was no crime in not having a place to live. Now a pregnant woman was sleeping behind a dumpster in the middle of winter.
No good deed went unpunished.
&
nbsp; Abe knew that and yet he also knew what he had to do. There was no way he was allowing this woman to continue to sleep outside, so even though he knew this probably wasn’t going to turn out to be one of his best ideas, he didn’t see any other option. And maybe if there was something sinister going on here—and his gut was telling him that there was—then he could find out what it was, find a way to help this girl so she could move on with her life.
With a sigh, he moved the dumpster further away and then crouched down beside Meadow and reached out, gently grasping her shoulder and giving a small shake.
“Meadow, wake up,” he said, keeping his voice quiet so as not to frighten her. “Meadow, I’m the sheriff, wake up now. Meadow.”
* * * * *
10:56 P.M.
Someone was touching her.
Meadow woke in a panic.
He was here.
She was in trouble.
She shouldn’t have run.
What was he going to do to her?
Although she knew it was a bad idea, and one that was going to serve no purpose but to heap punishment on top of punishment, she couldn’t go back without a fight.
So a fight is what she put up.
She screamed, she thrashed, she swung her arms and kicked her feet, but it didn’t seem to do any good. Instead of doing anything to stop him, she was dragged out from where she had burrowed herself away and pinned against a chest that felt every bit as hard as the wall she had just been lying against. Strong arms encircled her, pinning her own arms to her sides and holding her in place.
She gave up.
What was the point in fighting?
She had done the wrong thing in running away, and she was going to be punished for it. Why continue to make it worse?